


Path of Shattered Glass

by Cumbermarvel (UglyJackal)



Series: Trans Stephen [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Trans Male Character, Tumblr Prompt, trans!Stephen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15254607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/Cumbermarvel
Summary: Stephen hated mirrors.





	Path of Shattered Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Teen and Up rating because it's kind of a heavy subject? There's also some kind of low-key graphic body horror too?
> 
> I keep projecting onto Stephen, I'm so sorry, my baby

Stephen was staying over at Tony's for a weekend. He had asked Wong to look after the Sanctum for the two days that he would be away, and hoped that nothing would drag him away. He had taken his sling ring just in case, however. Now, he was laying in Tony's large bed, cuddled up to his boyfriend, head tucked underneath the engineer's chin and arms and legs tangled up in each other. They were semi-naked, shirts thrown onto the floor, but Stephen still had his binder on. Tony was carding his hands through Stephen's hair, paying particular attention to the sorcerer's grey hairs on his temples.

It was the epitome of peacefulness, quiet and calm filling the air, as the dust motes floated around in the sunlight like goldfish.

Until it was cracked open with the shrill ring of Tony's phone as someone called him. Both of them jerked as they were startled by the sound, and then they sighed as they had to get up. Stephen collapsed back onto the bed, frowning and rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling; he could feel his chest becoming tight, not with the comforting weight of his binder, but something deep in his heart that made him feel so unlike himself that it was like he was a completely different person.

Tony answered the phone. 'Hey Rhodey-bear, what's up?' he asked. The rest of the conversation was a series of 'yeah?'s, sighs, and 'fine's. Once he put the phone down, he turned to Stephen with an apologetic smile. 'I'm super sorry, baby,' he said, walking back over to the bed and leaning over to press his lips to the wizard's grey hair, 'but Rhodey-bear needs me for some last minute mechanical stuff; a plane isn't working properly, I don't think.'

Stephen pouted. 'Do you really have to go?' he asked. He didn't want to be alone while he was feeling like this, scared that he might hurt himself.

'Unfortunately, yeah,' he said, 'but I'll only be gone for about three hours, it won't be too long.'

The mage sighed. 'Alright,' he said, 'go on, have fun without me.' He reached up and pressed a kiss to Tony's lips.

'I love you,' the mechanic said, returning the kiss and grabbing his shirt from the floor before leaving the room.

'I love you too,' Stephen called after his boyfriend.

As he heard the door slam shut and Tony's car engine start, Stephen felt a crippling loneliness and a deadweight of dysphoria settle over his body like a blanket. He shivered and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the feelings down.

He felt like he was suffocating, and not in the good way that he felt when he and Tony were together, he felt like he was suffocating, drowning, that the sea salt water of dysphoria was filling his lungs inch by inch. He felt his skin itch with the incessant need to be ripped away, strip by strip. He wanted to tear his skin off and slash his muscles. He wanted to take himself apart and put himself back together to be right. To be how he should be. He wanted to hack at his chest and between his legs until they were as they should be. Why couldn't he have just been born male? Why did he have to put up with bullshit like this? Why? Why? Why?

He sat up, despite the weight on his chest, despite everything telling him to curl up and give in.

He got off of the bed and he went into the bathroom, body shaking, and looked into the mirror. He saw... a woman pretending to be a man. The goatee was painted on, the hair was too long. His cheeks were too flabby to be mistaken for a man's. He was wrong, so wrong. A fake. Pretending. Fooling everyone. No, not fooling: deceiving them.

The anger rose up in his stomach like bile. And he opened his mouth to retch, but punched the mirror instead. He screamed in pain as the shards of glass bit hungrily into his already tender hands.

He retracted his fist into his chest, holding it with his other hand. He hissed as he touched the bleeding cuts. Some of them had cut into his oldest scars, the ones from the surgeries that he had had, and it felt like he had reopened an old memory, as he felt himself flooded with the thoughts of his old self. How arrogant he had been. How he had deserved it.

He stormed out of the bathroom.

Through the house he went, turning the mirrors around. The ones that were fixed to the wall, he smashed with his already hurt fist. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But he didn't care. If he was trying to hard to be a man, then he should be able to take the pain. He should be able to have his hand cut up without crying every time the glass tore at his skin like a hungry lion. But he couldn't. Because he wasn't a man.

'I'm not a man,' he mumbled to himself, as he shattered another mirror.

'I'm not a man,' he said louder, as his fist collided with the glass again.

'I'm not a man!' he cried, as he kept punching the mirror, punching his own broken reflection, punching the pain in his glass eyes.

'I'm not a man!' he shouted over and over again, as both of his fists punched at the tears slipping down his cheeks.

He didn't hear the door open. Didn't realise that he had been punching and shouting for so long. Didn't hear the shocked gasp as Tony walked through his path of shattered glass.

Only realised that he wasn't alone when Tony wrapped his arms around his shaking shoulders and whispered into his ears, 'You are more of a man than anyone I know.'

He looked up, curled in on himself, bleeding hands clutched to his chest. 'I'm not,' he whispered, voice sad and small and it made Tony's heart break like the mirrors that Stephen had punched.

'Yes, you are,' the mechanic said firmly, 'and you will always be a man in my eyes, no matter what you say to yourself.'

There was silence for a few moments, as Stephen looked down at his red shaking hands and Tony pressed kisses in the wizard's hair.

'I'm sorry about your mirrors,' the sorcerer said quietly, nuzzling into Tony.

'I don't care about the mirrors, I can buy new ones,' the engineer said, 'what matters is you. Now come on, let's get those hands cleaned up and bandaged, and then we can go back to bed. Sound like a plan?'

Stephen hummed. 'Yeah, it does,' he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/stephenstrangestan


End file.
